6 - Rohan
R ohan was the one who had killed Baba, and Jafar could never know. It wasn’t Barkat exacting vengeance or a neglectful kitchen hand who let the fire grow high enough to catch a curtain, it wasn’t a glass left in the wrong ray of the desert sunlight, it was Rohan.
Jafar wanted to find the genie lamp and utilize those promised wishes as they were meant to be used. Unlike Rohan, who hadn’t used a genie to make his wish, just a handful of bitter, angst-ridden thoughts. He peered through the hole at the remains of their house, and he knew, deep, deep inside of him, that Mama had not returned. And instead of trading Baba’s riches for Mama’s return, he’d lost Baba, too.
The weight of that threatened to crush him.
Rohan had killed Baba, which made him certain now more than ever that he had also killed Mama, and if Jafar and the parrot hadn’t saved him, he would have died, too, in a moment of his own making.
Jafar pulled him from the old shack, and as they darted from the shadows of one enclave and alley to the next, Rohan snuck a glance at him, certain his brother could hear his thoughts. Sweat was dripping down his back, dampening the keffiyeh wrapped around his nose and mouth. They crossed one street and then another, that bright red parrot on Jafar’s shoulder. Talking parrot. There was so much happening at once that Rohan didn’t think he’d fully grasped his current situation. His looming future.
Baba was dead .
For as long as Rohan could remember, he had been Jafar’s shadow. And for as long as he could remember, he had been more than content to remain his brother’s shadow. Even now, as he trudged along after Jafar, his heart sinking like his footfalls in the sand, he was grateful he wasn’t alone. Grateful his brother didn’t know the truth.
“Too bad we’ve had some good rain lately, or this one would have been a hero with all the water leaking out of his eyeballs,” Iago snarked from atop Jafar’s shoulder as Rohan swiped the tears from his face.
He hadn’t thought the parrot would be cruel when he and Jafar had purchased him in the bazaar. Then again, Rohan hadn’t thought the bird could speak, either.
By the time Rohan realized where they were going, Jafar was looking both ways before wedging his dagger behind the latch of the door. It snapped open, and the three of them stepped into one of their father’s storerooms not far from their house.
“Why are we here?” Rohan asked. His throat closed when the scent of Baba’s attar welcomed him. I’m sorry, Baba . He, too, had never been close to Baba, but their relationship had still been special in its own way. They shared secrets and conversations Jafar might never know about. Baba sought him out at times, even afforded vulnerability—a rare moment when he’d allowed himself to shed tears about Mama.
Focus . Jafar had a plan in mind. The genie lamp. If Mama’s stories were true, the lamp could do anything. Not only would Rohan bring Mama back, not only would Rohan right this horrible wrong by returning Baba to the world of the living, but he could wish for Baba to be a better man. Mama would appreciate that, too.
He would rewrite their entire lives for the better, and best of all: he would be responsible for their happiness.
It wasn’t often that Rohan was in accord with Jafar’s plans, but this time, he was.
Jafar wiped imaginary dirt off the blade and slipped it back in its sheath. Rohan was surprised there had been enough time for Jafar to grab his dagger as they were escaping from the house. It wasn’t as if he’d been forewarned of the catastrophe. “We might as well make use of something that’s ours by right.”
Rohan flinched at the heartless words and couldn’t stop the ice from slipping into his own. “He’s dead, Jafar. He might not have always been good—”
“Never, Rohan,” Jafar whispered, and for whatever reason, he looked betrayed when he said it. “He was never good to me.”
His voice was laced with pain, a cold and bitter kind of sorrow that Rohan felt in his bones.
“You can still be the better person,” Rohan countered. “You can still choose to respect the dead.”
Jafar looked away. “You’re right. I’m sorry. He was my father before all else.”
His tone and demeanor had changed so thoroughly, Rohan had to look away, too. He hadn’t expected Jafar to respond like that . He’d braced for a dismissal, perhaps, or even some chagrin, not full-out regret. It was almost hard to believe.
“It’s all right,” Rohan forced himself to say with a feeble smile for Jafar’s sake. Jafar was trying, and so should he. “No one—no one really teaches us how to get through the death of a parent, let alone both. But why the sudden interest in the genie lamp?”
There were only certain stories of Mama’s that Jafar had ever paid attention to, and Rohan hadn’t thought the genie was one of them. Jafar rarely seemed to dream or indulge in fantasies like Rohan.
Jafar gave him a look. “To make our wishes, of course. We just lost everything. Don’t you have anything you want?”
“I—I do,” Rohan stammered. “Of course I do. I just—I guess I never thought you believed in the lamp.”
Rohan watched Jafar snatch one of the maps from the basket in the corner and unroll it across the main table. As the silence dragged on, Rohan felt a twinge of distrust.
“You didn’t tell me what you want,” Jafar said at last.
Rohan didn’t know how to say what he wanted. “It’s like you said. We lost everything. I know Baba was never good to you, but we can get him back.”
“You would use a genie wish to get Baba back?” Jafar asked, and Rohan was relieved he sounded more curious than angry.
“I would use another to make him a better man. And then the last to bring Mama back.”
“You’d be all out of wishes then,” Iago pointed out, tilting his red head.
Rohan was well aware of that. “We’d be the wishless ones, but we’d also be happy because we’d have everything we could ever want or need.”
He looked at Jafar while he said the words, trying to see past the cool mask of his features. Did Jafar agree with him? Did he want the genie for the same reasons? He might not miss Baba, but Jafar certainly missed Mama.
Jafar spread his hand across the map, tamping down the curling edges.
“For Mama,” he said, meeting neither Rohan’s nor Iago’s eyes.
“Anyway, how do you plan on finding one tiny lamp in an endless desert?” Iago asked, peering down at the papyrus. “You’ve got Agrabah, Maghriz, Hulum.”
“You can read, too?” Jafar asked, incredulous.
“I can fly, Jafar. Are you really surprised I can do all those other things?” Iago replied.
“Because you’re a parrot!” Rohan exclaimed.
“And?”
Rohan sputtered, “And parrots can’t talk or read, or move their feathers about like they’re—they’re human fingers.”
Jafar paused, scrutinizing Iago as if for the first time. “Why are you like that, anyway?” He held up a finger, stopping Iago’s protest before it began. “If you didn’t want to be questioned, you shouldn’t have spoken.”
“Why, I oughta leave you two here in the dust,” Iago huffed, and when neither brother budged, he sighed, his chest deflating. “I don’t know. Everything in me feels wrong, like I don’t fit in my body, but I’ve been a parrot for as long as I can remember. Which isn’t very long, by the way. I remember the bazaar and the shopkeeper feeding me stale crackers, then you two bought me, and here I am. If I try to recall anything from before the bazaar, the memories turn hazy and give me a headache. Happy now?”
It didn’t make Rohan happy as much as feel he could understand Iago in a way. He never felt like he belonged, either.
“For now,” Jafar said, and Rohan thought he could have been nicer, but Iago didn’t seem to care.
He dismissed Jafar with a flap of his wing and shifted his focus back to the map.
“We’re not looking for the lamp,” Jafar said. “We need to find the two halves of the golden scarab that will lead us to it— and make sure such a thing exists.”
“I thought your mother said that it does,” Iago said.
“Are you saying you don’t trust Mama?” Rohan asked, looking at Jafar in the light slanting through the narrow window.
“I trusted Mama,” Jafar said. “Which is why I trust that what she told us was a story.” He studied the borders and routes. “Let’s see here. Hulum has more weapons and mercenaries than it does books or people to read them. Agrabah is a trade center known to possess enchanted objects, but going bazaar hunting will be like looking for a needle in a haystack. We want to go to Maghriz so we can learn about the lamp and the scarab halves and, most of all, verify that it’s all true.”
“Why can that only happen in Maghriz?” Rohan asked. The name was familiar, but he couldn’t place it. He was too overwhelmed by everything that had happened and was still happening.
“It’s where we’ll find the House of Wisdom,” Jafar said.
Rohan froze. Of course. He knew all about Maghriz and the House of Wisdom. Jafar spoke about it endlessly.
Jafar’s scholarship.
The words sprang to Rohan’s tongue: Your letter came today. You were accepted, but— but what? How could he tell Jafar that Baba didn’t want him to attend, and so their father had ripped Jafar’s one prestigious ticket into shreds? And that Rohan might have had a hand in it all?
Baba was dead now. The scholarship burned to ashes. Gone, just like everything else in their life. And the last thing Rohan wanted was to sour Jafar’s last image of Baba even further.
Rohan was vaguely aware that his guilt was getting in the way of his awareness, but he couldn’t fight it. Still, if Jafar was planning to reach the House of Wisdom’s gates and speak of a pending scholarship, that could be infinitely worse. They wouldn’t hesitate to tell him that he had indeed been accepted. Jafar was smart enough to piece together the rest.
Iago squawked. “Too bad you don’t have that scholar—”
Wretched bird! Rohan hurried to speak over him.
“But the House of Wisdom is near the palace, filled with guards—” Rohan started.
“There are plenty of—” said Jafar at the same time.
They stared at each other, and in the silence, the sounds of people going about their days echoed from outside. Only their lives had changed. Rohan had gone and killed his father, and the rest of the world kept moving.
“You first,” Jafar said.
Iago looked between the two of them with far more attitude than a parrot should possess.
“It’s impossible,” Rohan said. “The House of Wisdom is in the capital city, near the Maghrizi palace. Think about how tight security might be.”
“Spoken like a true coward,” Iago pronounced.
Rohan gritted his teeth. He was beginning to regret buying the parrot. “What’s in it for you, anyway? You’re just lucky Jafar decided to trust your ugly hide and save your life.”
Jafar looked taken aback at Rohan’s outburst but still shifted an expectant gaze toward Iago.
“You too?” Iago asked, hurt flashing in his eyes. “I told you guys. I want to know why I’m like this as much as you two bozos. The House of Wisdom is my best bet.”
Jafar pursed his lips, pleased with the response. He glanced at Rohan. “Nothing is ever impossible,” Jafar assured him. “I overheard during one of Baba’s meetings that Maghriz is on the brink of war. Something, something, treaty, alliance. They won’t be too concerned about us.”
Rohan wanted to argue, but he needed to be less afraid. He needed the lamp. Possibly more than Jafar did. Rohan couldn’t live with himself knowing what he’d done.
It wasn’t some fluke that had killed Baba. Rohan was used to making wishes in times of desperation, and it always resulted in fate laughing in his face. Which was another reason he needed the lamp: so his wishes would come true without any extra casualties.
Jafar folded up the map and tucked it away, straightening his shoulders and then his robes of crimson and black as if they weren’t singed and covered in soot.
“Stop being so glum,” he said. “When have I ever steered us wrong?”
Rohan hid a smile. Jafar had been there for him, always and always. He had filled the shoes of a parent when their mother had died and their father no longer had love to give. He had protected Rohan even when it was to his own detriment.
Perhaps that was why Rohan had agreed with Baba about the scholarship.
“Never,” Rohan said.